Winter 2021 Volume 47 Issue 2 223 Lewis Fallis The Political Significance of Friendship in Plato’s Lysis J. A. Colen & The First Walgreen Lectures by Leo Strauss (1949) 253 Anthony Vecchio An Exchange Edward J. Erler & Schaefer contra Political Philosophy 355 Ken Masugi David Lewis Schaefer Unretired: A Reply to “Schaefer contra Political Philosophy” 375 Review Essay Borys M. Kowalsky & Nietzsche and Modernist Art, Part I: The Value of Friedrich 385 Joseph Phelan Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar Book Reviews Kevin J. Burns “From Reflection and Choice”: The Political Philosophy 401 of the Federalist Papers and the Ratification Debate, edited by Will R. Jordan Steven Forde Thucydides on the Outbreak of War: Character and Contest 407 by S. N. Jaffe Jerome C. Foss Good Things Out of Nazareth: The Uncollected Letters 413 of Flannery O’Connor and Friends, edited by Benjamin B. Alexander 419 Steven H. Frankel Power and Progress: Joseph Ibn Kaspi and the Meaning of History by Alexander Green 425 Thomas Powers Multiculturalism in Canada: Constructing a Model Multi- culture with Multicultural Values by Hugh Donald Forbes 431 Aaron Zubia Taking Comedy Seriously: Stand-Up’s Dissident Potential in Mass Culture by Jennalee Donian ©2021 Interpretation, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the contents may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. ISSN 0020-9635 Editor-in-Chief Timothy W. Burns, Baylor University General Editors Charles E. Butterworth • Timothy W. Burns General Editors (Late) Howard B. White (d. 1974) • Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Seth G. Benardete (d. 2001) • Leonard Grey (d. 2009) • Hilail Gildin (d. 2015) Consulting Editors David Lowenthal • Harvey C. Mansfield • Thomas L. Pangle • Ellis Sandoz • Kenneth W. Thompson Consulting Editors (Late) Leo Strauss (d. 1973) • Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987) • Michael Oakeshott (d. 1990) • John Hallowell (d. 1992) • Ernest L. Fortin (d. 2002) • Muhsin Mahdi (d. 2007) • Joseph Cropsey (d. 2012) • Harry V. Jaffa (d. 2015) International Editors Terence E. Marshall • Heinrich Meier Editors Peter Ahrensdorf • Wayne Ambler • Marco Andreacchio • Maurice Auerbach • Robert Bartlett • Fred Baumann • Eric Buzzetti • Susan Collins • Patrick Coby • Erik Dempsey • Elizabeth C’de Baca Eastman • Edward J. Erler • Maureen Feder-Marcus • Robert Goldberg • L. Joseph Hebert • Pamela K. Jensen • Hannes Kerber • Mark J. Lutz • Daniel Ian Mark • Ken Masugi • Carol L. McNamara • Will Morrisey • Amy Nendza • Charles T. Rubin • Leslie G. Rubin • Thomas Schneider • Susan Meld Shell • Geoffrey T. Sigalet • Nicholas Starr • Devin Stauffer • Bradford P. Wilson • Cameron Wybrow • Martin D. Yaffe • Catherine H. Zuckert • Michael P. Zuckert Copy Editor Les Harris Designer Sarah Teutschel Inquiries Interpretation, A Journal of Political Philosophy Department of Political Science Baylor University 1 Bear Place, 97276 Waco, TX 76798 email [email protected] Book Review: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar 385 Review Essay Sebastian Schütze, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar. With a foreword by Marc Mayer and an essay, “New World Nietzsche: A History of Becoming,” by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen. Ottawa: 5 Continents Editions–National Gallery of Canada, 2019, 119 pp., CDN$34.00. Nietzsche and Modernist Art, Part I: The Value of Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar* Borys M. Kowalsky [email protected] Joseph Phelan [email protected] Introduction It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Nietzsche was a cultural supernova: the impact of his works has been nothing short of cataclysmic. Or to adapt Plato’s cave metaphor, Nietzsche is one of the most important architects of the cave in which we moderns and postmoderns live. Thus, the search for an adequate understanding of how his philosophy has shaped Western culture must figure largely in our endeavor to illuminate that cave. Equally impor- tant, in examining the myriad ways in which Western culture has remade itself in response to his philosophy, we begin to understand and appreciate *We would like to acknowledge our large debt of gratitude to Patrick Malcolmson for his numerous thought-provoking remarks on earlier drafts of the essay. © 2021 Interpretation, Inc. 386 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 47 / Issue 2 important things in or about the philosophy itself which would otherwise be lost on us. Briefly put, we stand to learn as much about Nietzsche’s philoso- phy as we do about ourselves from such an inquiry. This point is as true of studies in the visual arts as it is of studies in philosophy, the social sciences, literature, and music from his day on. All inquiries of this type have a place in contemporary liberal education. One of the highlights of the spring-summer 2019 season in the world of the visual arts was the publication of the catalog1 accompanying the Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar exhibition in the National Gal- lery of Canada (Ottawa). A major premise of the catalog, which it seeks to vindicate through an exploration of the Nietzsche-modernist art nexus, is that “the rise and fall of the New Weimar represents an extraordinary chapter both in the history of modernity and in the history of the ideas at the junc- tion of philosophy and art” (35, emphasis added). At the turn of the twentieth century, Nietzsche became a rallying cry and a cult figure for artists, writers, and critics throughout the German-speaking world; the combined efforts of his sister, Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and Count Harry Graf Kessler in fos- tering a growing, dynamic cult of Nietzsche based in the city of Weimar were a factor, no less potent for being hitherto little known, in this development. At the same time, a major but also little-known battle in the war for artistic modernism was fought in Weimar, where Kessler was the director of the local arts and crafts museum (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe). As we argue in the first part of the present essay, the catalog sheds new and vitally important light on both developments—no mean achievement—although the connec- tion between the burgeoning cult of Nietzsche at “the New Weimar” and the latter’s promotion of a Nietzsche-inspirited aesthetic modernism is too often assumed rather than explicitly and cogently argued by the catalog. TheNew Weimar catalog is, moreover, an excellent jumping-off point for further reflection on scholarship, to date, of the larger question of Nietzsche’s influence on modernist art. One of the chief deficiencies or limitations of that scholarship is its failure thus far to clarify and establish the nature and 1 Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar (Ottawa: 5 Continents Editions–National Gallery of Canada, 2019). This work will, with a few exceptions, be cited in-text by page and abbrevi- ated as the New Weimar catalog or, more simply, New Weimar. Our discussion approaches and engages with the catalog as an independent work of scholarship in the general area of the visual arts. It is because the catalog breaks new ground regarding the connection between Nietzsche’s philosophy and modernism in the visual arts—which remains a fertile field of inquiry—that we believe it merits close scholarly scrutiny. This is not to detract in any way from the value of the exhibition, which, though relatively modest in its number of items on display, was highly illuminating. Book Review: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar 387 magnitude of Nietzsche’s philosophical influence on modernist art. The cata- log too is not altogether free of those limitations, notwithstanding that we have much to learn from it. The foregoing problem and a possible solution to it occupy most of Part II of the present essay (to be published in the next issue of Interpretation). At the heart of this discussion is an extensive, detailed analysis of the influence of Nietzschean philosophical ideas on certain works of art by the famous early modernist artist Edvard Munch that incorporates but goes well beyond the commentary and insights contained in the catalog. The hope is that that analysis can serve as a model for the kind of thorough, in-depth historical and philosophical analyses which would fill the pages of any adequate account of the Nietzsche-modernist art nexus. In short, we applaud and strive to emulate the catalog’s dedication to illuminating the interface between philosophy and art, especially as instan- tiated in the interface between Nietzsche’s philosophy and modernist art. Gaining clarity about that interface is a key element in the improvement of both our cultural self-knowledge and our understanding of Nietzsche. The ultimate aim of the present essay as a whole is to advance that part of our liberal education. “The New Weimar” project The primary objective of the catalog is to shed light on the project, spear- headed by Count Harry Graf Kessler, in collaboration with Nietzsche’s sister Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and assisted by the Belgian artist and architect Henry Van de Velde, among others, of creating a full-blown Nietzschean cultural center in Weimar. Why Weimar? After Nietzsche had fallen hopelessly mentally ill, his sister took responsibility for his care and at the same time sought complete control over the shaping of his cultural legacy. In keeping with the latter aim, she established a Nietzsche Archive in Naumburg in 1894. Yet only a few years later, in 1897, she successfully contrived the relocation of the archive, together with her ailing brother, to the Villa Siberblick in Weimar. She was assisted financially in this endeavor by Meta von Salis, who, happily for her, was an ardent and wealthy admirer of Nietzsche. The choice of Weimar was dictated by Förster-Nietzsche’s ambitious desire of “inscribing [Nietzsche] into the myth of the classical Weimar of Goethe, Schiller and Herder” (12).